Vietnam - Saigon (HCM)
Saigon is a pretty cool city. It’s most definitely an “in the process” city, but I feel like they’ll work it out. The people are very nice, the girls are pretty, and the city center is quite walkable. It’s not overly communist like say mainland china, but you still definitely know that you are in a socialist world. The people ride motorbikes and scooters like it’s nobody’s business. I mean they are everywhere and they are in charge, no question. The streets are filled with little shops and there is street food everywhere (not as much pho as I expected), kind of like Thailand but heavier on the rice and the wrappings…and bahn mi. Speaking of pho…why is soup good. Oh the flavors are so complex! Its soup dude. Don’t try and church it up.
Notes to self:
-Hit up the war remnants museum. While this place is heartbreaking, its still really cool to visit the war museum in the other sides country. As a sidebar, they used to call it the American War Crimes museum…but none of the English speaking tourists would go!
-Ben Than market is like most markets in Asia…but I love how when the shop keepers grab you here, they smile. Loved the food stalls in the center and on the edges. These places were the shit and lunch there is a must. I’m still wondering if I was supposed to eat this one thing…the lady just kept laughing every time I asked!
-While there were a lot of people asking for massage, and many scooter guys asking if you want a ride and then a girl, I found it to be better than Thailand and Manila for solicitations.
-For whatever reason, 3G did not work in this country. It’s probably the only place I’ve been to in my life where I couldn’t even pay for internet services…but maybe it was just AT&T
Caravelle Hotel - Nov 2013
This is a good hotel. Lobby is very nice. Feels old but in a good way. Not too grand, I really did feel like it fit right in with what I expected from a Vietnam hotel (used to be THE correspondent hotel during the war). I was in a club room which required club level check-in, not sure why hotels think that’s cool. Put the club desk on the ground floor! The club was pretty standard, and outside of having food and drink available at various times in the club itself, I’m not sure what the room status gets you. My view was fine, room size was pretty good. Bathroom was not very good with pretty old fixtures and the type of tub/shower you probably grew up with (probably the best shower soap I’ve had in my life though…strange but true, grainy and wonderful). The included breakfast downstairs was good and giant (the one in the club room was meh). 24 hour room service and pay per view but no adult. The casino is a giant poop on the whole idea of casinos. Like “oh my god” bad.
The rooftop (sort of) bar is a city landmark, and while it’s not as interesting as I expected, it was cool with decent views and on some level, harkens back to the late 60’s and early 70’s. The location of the hotel itself was hard to beat.